Deja Vu--All Over Again

This was just an ordinary day, December 3, 2015 with a chilly start but good bright sunshine to warm things up quickly. After having two mornings taken up with medical stuff that got me off to not the best start, it was nice to have a free morning and pleasant weather too. My dogs were happy also, scampering and sniffing along as we started off on a walk in the fresh brilliant day.

Cottonwood Colors 

Finally the fall-into-winter season is here. Recent chill, rain and wind has the leaves falling fast from the various deciduous trees around the neighborhood. There are elms, mulberry, various fruit trees, the ubiquitous cottonwood—the “alamo” for which Alamogordo is named—and some willows. Here and there, a sycamore or maple, with leaves reddish or rusty instead of gold going brown.  In spots the two red dogs and I scuffed along through scatters of leaves on the sidewalk. One patch was a bit thicker and more plentiful. For a few seconds I was in another body, another time and place. Snapping back to here and now, I recalled another time this also happened.

The first time was several years ago, about 2006, before I left the home in southern Arizona which I had shared for nearly twenty years with my late husband and then remained on alone for another five. That was another bright blue late November or early December day as I walked through some leaves going to check on something at my well.. All at once I was another-where and not the person I am here and now. I walked with someone, an unseen person I felt was important to me, and we waded, laughing, through much thicker and more prominent leaves, perhaps somewhere in New England or the Appalachian area. I may have held his or her hand; that part is vague and the glimpse into that distant reality was brief although the experience was intense.

At first time, I had an impression it was the second decade of the twentieth century, between the births of my parents in 1912 and 1920. I also felt that either I or my companion was about to go off to fight in World War I. This time, I didn’t have any sense of time or place—it was the briefest flash. Still, I have to think this somehow confirms I must have lived in that other place once and shared it with someone who has probably been in my current life, also. Deja vu—and in this case really “all over again.”

Pinto and Goldie

Then as we continued the walk I happened to see posters about two lost cats. One had a black cap and ears but looked mostly white while the other was a gold tiger striped cat. That gave me an odd glimpse to a past time in this current life. I lived in an apartment in an old house for two years while I was attending Northern Arizona University. A roommate and I were given two kittens by a prof whose daughter I often babysat after the child’s cat had a litter.

Mine was black and white and Mary’s was a gold tiger stripe! We called them Pinto and Goldie. They were litter mates but did not look alike at all. The mother was a tri-colored –what do they call them? Oh yes, calico--rather long haired cat. I have no idea of the father.  Pinto had short hair and Goldie medium. They were in my life briefly, Pinto for two years and Goldie less since Mary graduated and went off to teach on the Navajo Reservation. I have not owned a cat since and later learned they were the probable cause of my near-asthma symptoms that period.

Coincidence? Who knows. I have a friend who swears there is no such thing as a coincidence and I almost agree. Things happen for a reason, sometimes to give us a glimpse of a possible or actual past or future, sometimes to remind us of some period in our recent past (recent meaning the current life) and sometimes just one of those Celtic knot patterns where threads of our lives and others cross, part, twist and meet again, sometimes flowing from one into another. I cherish the reminders and those déjà vu peeks into otherwhere and otherwhen.